When a ship of any nation is running into action, there is no time for argument, small time for justice, and not much for humanity. Snatching a pistol from the belt of a boarder standing by, the captain leveled it at the heads of the sailors, and commanded them instantly to their quarters, under penalty of being shot on the spot. So, side by side with their country's foes, Sukey, Tawney and Rogers toiled at the guns, and fought out the fight to the last; with the exception of Rogers who was killed by one of his country's balls.
The conflict was terrible. Sukey was stationed on the gun deck, abreast the mainmast. This part of the ship they called the slaughter-house, for men fell five and six at a time. An enemy nearly always directs his shot at this point in order to cut away the mast. The beams and carlines were spattered with blood and brains. About the hatchways it looked like a butcher's stall; bits of human flesh were sticking in the ring-bolts. A pig that ran about the deck, though unharmed, was so covered with blood, that the sailors threw it overboard, swearing it would be rank cannibalism to eat it. A goat, kept on board for her milk, had her legs shot away, and was thrown into the sea.
The sailors who were killed were, according to the usual custom, ordered to be thrown overboard as soon as they fell; for the sight of so many corpses lying around might appall the survivors at the guns. A shot entering one of the portholes cut down two-thirds of a gun's crew. The captain of the next gun, dropping his lock string, which he had just pulled, turned over the heap of bodies to see who they were; when, perceiving an old messmate, who had sailed with him in many cruises, he burst into tears, and, taking the corpse up in his arms and going with it to the side, he held it over the water a moment, gazed on the silent pale face and cried:
"Oh, God! Tom--Tom, has it come to this at last----"
"D--n your prayers! over with that thing! overboard with it and down to your gun!" roared a wounded lieutenant. The order was obeyed, and the heart-stricken sailor returned to his post.
At last, having lost her fore and maintopmasts, her mizzenmast having been shot away to the deck, and her foreyard lying in two pieces on her shattered forecastle, having been hulled in a hundred places with round shot, the Macedonian was reduced to the last extremity. Captain Garden ordered his signal quarter-master to strike the flag.
Never did Sukey hear a command with greater joy. Never was a sailor so happy at being defeated. When the order was given to strike the flag, one of Captain Garden's officers, a man hated by the seamen for his tyranny, howled the most terrific remonstrances, and swore he would rather sink alongside than surrender. Had he been captain, probably he would have done so.
Sukey and Tawney were among the boat's crew which rowed Captain Garden to the enemy. As, he touched the deck, Captain Garden saluted his captor, Captain Decatur, and offered him his sword; but it was courteously declined. The victor remembered the dinner parties he and Captain Garden had enjoyed in Norfolk, previous to the breaking out of hostilities, and while both were in command of the very frigates now crippled on the sea. The Macedonian had gone into Norfolk with despatches; while Decatur was in that port. Then they had laughed and joked over their wine, and a wager of a beaver hat was said to have been made between them upon the event of the hostile meeting of their ships.
This was their next meeting. Sukey and Tawney went home in the American frigate United States. With Sukey's return to his native country, the reader's interest in the naval operations perhaps ceases. Naval battles are the same, bloody and desperate, and the details of the fight with the Macedonian are the details of all others. After briefly noticing the principal victories and defeats on sea, we shall take up again the characters in our story.
On November 22d, the United States brig Vixen was captured by the English frigate Southampton, and both were subsequently shipwrecked on December 29th, the United States frigate Constitution, under Commodore Bainbridge, captured the British frigate Java, off the coast of Brazil. The American loss was 44 and the British 151. The American victories of the year of 1812 with such little loss produced much exultation in America and surprise and mortification in England. American seamen had been the greatest sufferers at the hands of the British, and they had long burned to avenge the insults of the English Navy. They fought for patriotism, glory and vengeance.